Fit to sprint: Top talent exits The New York Times
By: Dylan Byers November 12, 2013 09:47 PM EDT

The New York Times is suffering a brain drain.

In the past nine months, at least a dozen top reporters and editors have made for the exits. Among them are such well-known and respected journalists as Nate Silver, who sprinted to ESPN; David Pogue, who decamped to Yahoo News; Jeff Zeleny, who left for ABC News; and Rick Berke, who is en route to POLITICO. That’s not counting the many editors and reporters who took buyouts at the beginning of the year.

On Tuesday, in a sucker punch to staff morale, the Grey Lady lost three more: Brian Stelter, the paper’s marquee media reporter, announced he would go to CNN; Matt Bai, The New York Times Magazine’s chief political correspondent, decamped to Yahoo; and Capital New York reported on Monday night that Hugo Lindgren, the editor of the magazine, will leave at the end of the year.

The departures have brought the Times face to face with a harsh reality: In the new media landscape, some journalists have become their own brands with followings and reputations that are not dependent on the “aura” of the paper of record. Some built their brands at the paper, but it does not necessarily have the resources or flexibility to keep them. Meanwhile, deep-pocketed competitors are willing to pay top dollar for top-flight talent — an issue many large media outlets, not just theTimes, are facing.

“Every reporter’s own brand is more important than it used to be,” one former Times staffer told POLITICO. “There are more competitors out there, and they have money.”

“The Times used to be able to bank on the fact that it was The New York Times: Like, ‘Sure, Yahoo or CNN might pay you more, but do you really want to write for Yahoo or CNN?’ Increasingly, the answer is: ‘Yes’.”

It was not always thus. For decades, a Times job was among the most coveted assignments in the business. The paper was an institution; once you were allowed in, you did not leave — and why would you want to, anyway? But new technology has reconfigured the playing field. Now, prominent reporters like Silver, Pogue and Stelter are finding that they can take their brand elsewhere, and for much higher pay.

“I’ve been at the @nytimes since college so it’s surreal to be leaving,” Stelter tweeted.

When Jill Abramson took the reins as Times executive editor two years ago, she said a top priority would be retaining talent.

“It is a mistake for The New York Times to ever rest on its laurels. It is a very competitive landscape, and our competitors are constantly knocking on the doors of our best people,” she told the paper’s public editor at the time. “I don’t think it is an organizational weakness, but sometimes I just feel we took our eyes off making someone know how important and appreciated they are, and therefore left them vulnerable to being picked off.”

And in an interview with New York Magazine, Abramson said, “Retention is becoming a challenge. … The economy has improved, whether it’s Bloomberg or the Huffington Post, I can feel on any given week that I’m playing whack-a-mole keeping our most talented people.”

Current and former staffers told POLITICO that Abramson has found it difficult to put her philosophy about retaining top talent into practice.

When informed by top reporters in employment negotiations that counteroffers are on the table, Abramson’s response can be dismissive, they said. One staffer characterized it as: “How dare you threaten to leave the Times.” Another: “If you think you’re bigger than the Times, good riddance.” This summer, when Nate Silver’s agent referred to the star statistician as “the prettiest girl at the party” during negotiations, Abramson countered, according to Newsweek: “The New York Times is always the prettiest girl at the party.” Silver went to ESPN.

In a statement, Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said, “The Times is bigger than any one journalist.”

“[G]iven the size and strength of our staff, it’s inevitable that some very good people might be recruited to opportunities elsewhere that are more particularly suited to their interests,” she said. “At the same time, we are still hiring great new talent — Jonathan Martin [formerly of POLITICO] and Jason Horowitz [formerly of The Washington Post], among them — and Jill remains committed to ensuring that our newsroom has the best and strongest mix of journalistic talent.”

That Abramson has struggled in that effort is due, in part, to the Times’ inability to match the high salaries on offer from the competition. In an exit interview with Forbes, Pogue described the Yahoo position as “an offer I couldn’t refuse.” For others, more money is coupled with expanded coverage areas and staff: “This is a dream job for me,” Silver said of ESPN in a statement released by the network, citing the opportunity to expand his blog and “create jobs for a great team of journalists, writers and analysts.” Without mentioning specific figures, sources said that Silver, Pogue, Stelter and Bai had all been offered extremely significant increases on what they were making at the Times.

Some staffers believe that Mark Thompson, the chief executive, has put Abramson in “an impossible position” by holding a tight fist on the Times’s purse.

“He’s holding the money, and that’s not making it possible for Jill to compete,” a source told POLITICO. “There are more and more news organizations with money to dole out. Meanwhile, the Times makes it hard to get a raise. Over time, your earning power declines.”

Unable to put up a counteroffer, Abramson falls back on the one card she has left to play: This is The New York Times, and you don’t leave. Times executives have used the flight of top talent as a bargaining chip, according to one source: “What they will say now to people is: ‘You shouldn’t leave because this makes the Times looks bad.’ You hear that becoming part of the issue,” the source said.

Abramson has managed to retain some staffers, though it’s impossible to know how many. “For every high-profile departure there are other people who are staying,” one staffer said. And not all staffers have left simply because Abramson failed to retain them. For instance, several sources said that Abramson had long been disappointed with Lindgren’s tenure at the magazine and that his exit was long in coming.

Still, sources say her response to reporters and editors who have been courted by the competition has done little to achieve her goal of making staffers feel “important and appreciated.”

In February, POLITICO reported that Times reporters Jeff Zeleny and Susan Saulny were in late-stage talks with ABC News. Zeleny was practically out the door, but Saulny was still on the fence. Nevertheless, Abramson sent a statement to POLITICO confirming the negotiations and noting that Saulny was a “gifted reporter” who “lights up any screen.” Though Abramson said she hoped the two reporters would stay with the Times, the message was interpreted by Saulny as a push to the door, sources familiar with her departure said. Saulny, who did not respond to a request for comment, is said to have made up her mind to leave after reading Abramson’s note.

Berke, who spent nearly three decades at the Times, at one point entertained an offer from The Washington Post. He was pushed off the masthead a year later. Though newsroom sources attributed the move to a number of factors, it was interpreted by many staffers as retribution for having courted the competition. Berke, who will soon become executive editor at POLITICO, declined to comment.

On Twitter, Times staffers responded to the news with a bittersweet refrain: “Thrilled for Brian, sad for us,” Times media columnist David Carr wrote of Stelter.